Dreams Do Come True

Today is Friday, 10/13. It is the last day of vacation and it seemed appropriate to end this 3 week trip by doing something on my bucket list. My favorite artist is Claude Monet, and I have dreamed for a long time about going to Giverny to see the gardens that inspired so many of his paintings. The gardens were awesome, like a Monet painting come to life. Especially the water garden. Seeing the bridges, water lilies, weeping willows, etc. took my breath away. I couldn't believe that there were some water lilies still blooming. The gardens close for the year on 10/31, but it was surprising how many flowers in the garden were still in bloom. We also went into his house, which was also very interesting. It was a fairly simple house that was furnished as it was when he lived there. Old photos in the rooms verified that things had not been changed. It is understandable why someone as successful as he was chose to live in those surroundings.

After we toured the gardens, house and gift shop we took the bus back to Vernon, where we were to take the train back to Paris. A train arrived and we got on. It was headed in the direction of Paris and it was close to the time of our train. We were a little puzzled when the train left before the posted time. Also, there were only a few passengers. No one came to check our tickets either. Well...we went through a few more stations and then got to a stop where the train sat there for longer than usual, for about 5 or 10 minutes. We thought the train was just ahead of schedule and waiting for more passengers. We weren't paying too much attention because we were chatting. Imagine our surprise when the train went into reverse. We knew we were in BIG trouble at that point. We looked around and noticed we were the only passengers. Holy Crap!! Now what? About 1/4 of a mile from the station the train stopped. What could we do? We jumped!!! Luckily the door opened. It was just like a scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I told Marie SHE had to be Butch, because I wanted to be Sundance! The really strange thing was that we walked past at least six railroad employees as we walked along the tracks back to the station and no one ever reacted to us being there. Almost like it it was normal. We then caught the slow train to Paris, but at least we made it!!

We decided that since it was our last night we would treat ourselves to a nice dinner. We sat outside at the cafe and watched the people go by, which is entertainment all by it self. Paris is full of street entertainers, and we had a fire eating guy station himself right by the restaurant. After that, back to the apartment to pack and finish off our wine. We will be getting an early start in the morning.